


Loves Me Not

by B52



Category: Food Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, Character Study, Drabble, Gen, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 17:32:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19010518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B52/pseuds/B52
Summary: They love each other, just never enough. Never in the right way. Never always—never even most of the time.It's not any kind of good, but it's all they have.





	Loves Me Not

He loves him, he does, and this is a frequent cause of the wars waged inside his own head. At the very least he knows he doesn’t love him in the way he should, the way a better man than him might—this helps him settle his mind, helps him forget at least for awhile. He’s been finished with love for a long time now; he knows he can’t go back and the last thing he wants is to try. The idea of it makes him feel something he won’t admit is fear.

But he loves him. Only sometimes, and certainly not most of the time. He doesn’t love the machine he barks orders at. When he’s blinded by anger, ripping at matted hair, throwing that scarred and broken body down onto the rocks, he sees nothing worth loving in those gaunt cheeks and empty eyes. He doesn’t love him when he falls, when he bleeds, when he falters or stutters or trips up—nor does he love him when he performs perfectly. Whatever he feels towards that blind obedience isn’t love; whatever he feels when he hits him or grabs him or takes what he wants from him and gets no response isn’t love, and he knows that.

But he loves him. It’s in the late nights when they’re alone together, when he’s had too much to drink and his head is spinning and his tongue is loose and consequences seem like a faraway dream, when he spills his guts out into the world and there’s only one person to listen. He sees something then. Perhaps it’s the alcohol blurring his vision, perhaps it’s wishful thinking—just him longing for someone to hear him, to understand how desperately his chest aches, to know the depths of his suffering—or perhaps the eyes that meet his across the table are softer than usual. Sometimes he dares to believe that might be the case. Things are always back to normal by morning anyway.

But he loves him. In those rare moments he loves him, and though it’s a sick twisted hopeless love it’s love nonetheless, no matter how much he hates that, no matter if it makes him sick to his stomach. Perhaps even rarer are the times he’ll catch a tender look, a favor completed he hadn’t asked for—in those moments he feels the rusted gears of his heart start to creak and turn and shriek like a wounded beast. Once when he’d been sick, lying in a feverish haze, he could’ve sworn that when someone had pulled the covers up over him as he lay shivering in bed and placed their hand on his cheek, he’d felt cool metal against his skin. His heart had screamed louder then and the gears spun faster than ever. He knows, always, these moments will mean nothing by the next day.

But he loves him. In some fucked up way, which he thinks might be the most he’s capable of, he loves him. And sometimes, when he sees himself side-by-side with him, when he looks down at his own bloodied hands and knows they’ll never shake as badly as the hands that clean up afterwards, when he meets those dark eyes and sees some deep gentle sorrow—sometimes he can’t help but wonder which of them is more human, him or his broken old machine.


End file.
